Review: “The Fate of the Furious”

3.5 out of 5 stars. By the time a franchise reaches its eighth movie—if it even continues for that long—it usually is beginning to show signs of slowing down. “The Fast and the Furious,” however, seems to be doing the opposite. In fact, the eighth film in that series, titled “The Fate of the Furious” […]

Review: “Speech and Debate”

4 out of 5 stars. “Speech and Debate” opens on a school board meeting in the small, conservative town of Salem, Oregon, immediately setting up the tone of the film and the environment in which this story takes place. The town’s mayor has recently resigned due to scandal, while the choice for this year’s school […]

Review: “Power Rangers” (2017)

3.5 out of 5 stars. They’re not your typical superheroes, but the Power Rangers were an indispensable aspect of almost every 90s kid’s life, beginning with the original 1993 television series. It’s rather astounding that, given the franchise’s ongoing popularity and the onslaught of nostalgia-based adaptations and reboots over the last few years, the Power […]

Review: “Beauty and the Beast” (2017)

4 out of 5 stars. There’s a point in director Bill Condon’s live-action version of Disney’s animated classic “Beauty and the Beast” where I knew right off that I was going to love the movie, and that point comes no more than two or three minutes into the film. The opening sequence that details the […]

Review: “Kong: Skull Island”

2.5 out of 5 stars. Warner Brothers has been trying to reboot its classic monster movie franchises over the past several years, with 2014’s “Godzilla” supposedly kicking off a series of new films. That film had mixed results, but “Kong: Skull Island,” the second film in this new “Monsterverse,” does even more so. Directed by […]

Review: “Logan”

4.5 out of 5 stars. Eight years ago, leaving the theater after watching the terrible, clichéd, first stand-alone Wolverine movie, “X-Men Origins: Wolverine,” I never would have thought the franchise would be here now. And yet, here we are. “Logan” is the third Wolverine standalone (following a middling 2013 effort simply titled “The Wolverine”) and […]

Review: “Get Out”

**Minor spoilers for “Get Out” are in this review, so please go see the film before reading!** 4.5 out of 5 stars. “Get Out” is a master class in horror filmmaking, made all the more impressive by the fact that it is the feature film directing and screenwriting debut of Jordan Peele, formerly one half […]

Review: “John Wick: Chapter 2”

4.5 out of 5 stars. They call him the Boogeyman, and whisper about that time he killed three men in a bar with only a pencil. As much as everyone hypes up the skills of assassin John Wick, it would be very easy to fail to meet audience expectations for the character. But not only […]

Review: “The Lego Batman Movie”

5 out of 5 stars. In 2014, “The Lego Movie” delighted critics and audiences, though not exactly in the way most people expected. It wasn’t just an irreverent, fast-paced adventure that’s enjoyable for both kids and kids-at-heart; at the end it revealed a beautiful, moving message that elevated the material beyond typical family fare. In […]

Review: “Lion”

4 out of 5 stars. It’s appropriately poignant that we don’t learn the significance of the title “Lion” until the end of the movie. For the end of the film marks the end of Saroo’s years long journey to find his birth family, a quest he pursued with the ferocity and determination often associated with […]